


A Light Sin

by immarbles



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Angst and Tragedy, Cannibalism, F/M, Fantasy, Magic, Mythology - Freeform, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:23:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immarbles/pseuds/immarbles
Summary: Natsu, as a famous bounty hunter, doesn't struggle surviving. However, he is in fact hanging from a fine thread between life and death.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Text by Nina Simone, 'Lilac Wine'.

-*-

_I do things I should never do_

_Because it brings me back you_

_-*-_


	2. Chapter 1

Natsu chuckled, bringing his glass to his lips. 'You can't convince me this girl is actually that dangerous.'

  
'You're crazy,' Gray said, smiling sideways. 'But whatever, I tried. You beat the great Acni, after all, so you must know better. I'm happy I'm finally free from that cursed snot woman.' He promped his elbow onto the edge of his seat while he crossed his legs and called a waiter from behind him. 'We need two more bottles here!'

'Aye!'

  
Natsu's new employer was a big chunk younger than he was. His youthful nonchalance amused him. He had gone through major lengths to get Natsu on this job, too, chasing this one man legend around the world with a large sack of coin to make him come to this small town. Usually, him not being unused to these kinds of scenarious, Natsu would refuse, but he had been charmed by his candor. 

It was for his wife, mostly, he'd explained, who couldn't sleep lately because of what was happening to her hometown.

Natsu swirled his drink around and thought about what Gray had told him.

_A father had became so angry with her daughter that he banned her to the forest just outside of town. She was guilty of fornication._

_The only promise he gave her was that he would bring her one lamb leg and a loaf of bread every week. After five years, though, he died._

_Taking this abrupt halt of her father’s visits as another punishment, the girl became furious. Her whole body became so stiff and rock hard from hatred that she was able to break the stone around her prison. She attacked everything in sight. By the way, that’s how this village came to be! The prison was right in the city center and all around it she made empty fallow land._

_Anyway… Suddenly, she smelled something wonderful. Amidst the circle of carnage had been a masked man, not her former husband who she had cheated on, but her lover, who had come to visit her secretly to bring her some food. The woman thought he smelled so good that he tried just a little bit of his leg, and… she became enamored with the taste._

_When she came to, she wanted to kill herself for what she had done, but couldn’t because she had already turned into stone. She tried smashing herself against the ground and the trees, but all were too soft to break her. Ashamed to leave the forest because of her crime, she stayed and sat still on the ground wishing for even her mind and heart to turn to stone. Her tears became pebbles from her eyes, and that’s why the forest’s ground has an unusual amount of it._

_After years of staying still, she lost instead of her mind and heart her own soul for the taste that came back on her tongue whenever she saw another young man pass her by. One day, her hunger was so big that she made another victim… breaking her completely. That’s how Lore the Terrible came to be._

_Now, she hides in the forest and waits until someone gets lost._

_She sizzles her enemies under the fire before eating them. That’s why, before she appears before you, you smell smoke –like barbecue!_

The story had become thick with rumor thanks to how long it'd been around. At the first sentence, Natsu, who had been in the mythical bounty business for a long time, saw through it immediately.

From what he gathered, she was just another naiad from the West stirring some trouble due to her sweet tooth for the local men's flesh. It was either that or some kind of runaway girl that resided in the woods just outside of town that had simply caused a misunderstanding with a villager, one which had blown up to this proportion, thus creating the monster living in the woods.

Natsu tried to soothe Gray's mind. 'I give you my word that she's not that large of a threat.'

Truth be told, even though this was his branch of business, Natsu rarely came into contact with monsters he had any difficulty beating. Furthermore, many of his missions were underwhelming confrontations with people that proudly showed him their large imagination and an even larger sack of coin to convince him that it was not just chance that had happened to kill their friends' babies.

In his life, but three powerful monsters in total, including the large dragon Igneel that had raised him, had crossed his path. The first time he'd battled a real monster ( _Acni the Great)_ , indeed in a total state of unbelief and shock, even though this was his job, was when he was twenty-seven and had already worked together ten long years.

It was back when Lucy was his occasional partner on missions. She was a god sent pacifier of the emotional, angry people they came across. He never, even after all these years, had become as good as one as she.

'I believe you,' Gray said. '...But if this scary beast stays around for a little longer, she'll become a folk tale that sings a once upon a time story, you know, like, _who knows if she might still be walking around in those woods, so watch out!_ And that's what we _don't_ want! The most important road for traders runs through that forest. With all the deaths and stories, they have become scared to come here! This town is starting to become ghostly with the business running so low.' He rubbed at his temples with a dramatic expression, as though damaged from what he had just said.

At this moment, a cheery young man came with their drinks. 'Here ya go!'

Natsu cleared his throat. 'Hey, boy,' he said, 'have you ever heard of the fairy in the woods?'

The boy's mouth corner twitched slightly. His practiced hands placed the bottles on their table. 'Well, heard of.'

'Have you seen her?'

The boy laughed and swatted his hand at the air. 'I can't say I have, sir. She's just a rumor to keep the kids from going in there and getting lost.'

'Might as well be that,' Natsu answered, taking a bottle and flicking the cork off, all the while eyeing Gray with a lazy smile. Just as the boy was turning around to heed to a call from his boss, Natsu lifted from his seat and grabbed his arm, halting him.

'Before you go, can I get your name?' he said.

The boy freezed. His boss called him again. He looked back and smiled at him quickly. 'It's Harold, sir.'

'Hm. Thank you, Harold.'

Natsu let him go with a polite smile and sat back into his seat, staring at him while he fluttered back to the bar where his boss was yelling for him.

'Have an interest, friend?'

His companion was clearly amused.

Natsu leaned back and took another sip, falling into his seat a little. He smiled faintly. 'I guess you could say that.'

_Would he remember?_

'Ah!' Gray's features became big for a second and he moved to pour into Natsu's glass. 'Better ask him out before his shift ends, then!'

Natsu looked back at him, making Gray's eyes curious. 'No... It's not that.' He let out a breathy chuckle. 'Harold... Close enough.'

After a pleasingly large swig, Natsu decided it was time and stood up. The glass hitting the table made a small thunk. He shrugged his shoulders until they loosened and rearranged his robe.

'Well, I'm off to sleep now.'

Gray hummed and dug into his sleeve with his opposing hand. He handed him a brown envelope. Taking it, Natsu stepped into his sandals and straightened his sleeves. 'I'll give you her head if you want -as a memento.' As he expected, Gray had wanted to hear this. He became excited. 'I do. My wife will be so happy.'

Natsu nodded. 'Then-...' He bowed his head just slightly. With a satisfied feeling, he walked back to his hotel. This place was so peaceful. He felt tender as salmon.

-

…

 _Natsu, bedridden, had nothing to do but cry, sleep, and be lazy. When, eventually, he’d bored of that, he’d taken the old book Lucy had given to him from behind the closet._ _Apart from being in a terrible state, there was really nothing remarkable about it. The flimsy cover contained very thin yellow pages that were unruled and empty._

 _He decided to try his luck._ _With a blunt pencil, he wrote down something he figured was something it could work with:_ _Invisibility._

_He stared at the word interspersed with his arm and waited. When, after a few minutes, no reaction came from it, he threw the book across the room, feeling irritated. Tears ruptured from his eyes at his own action and he crawled from his bed to pick it up again. He put it back behind his closet. T_ _he next morning, he found out that the word had disappeared from the page. This disturbed him immensely, but also made him cry again. He wrote the same word down again, this time with a pen, waited, and hid the book away safely again. After a day or two, he came to know that the word disappeared after just closing the book once._

_‘It’s like a rejection…’_

_After having this thought, he tried many other spells that he thought were magically correct enough, but even something as mainstream as a love spell wouldn’t stick._

_Even though this book was valuable according to Lucy, it only brought him in a bad mood._

_He had been bedridden for two weeks now and became depressed. All this mystery about this thing in his hands seemed unsolvable for him alone, but he was too afraid to tell anyone about having it –he didn’t want the trouble of having it stolen._

_He threw it from his bed countless times and also picked it up from the ground again every time, until the book eventually lost its cover and the pages started to curl around themselves._

_One day, the expected doom finally came. Caught redhanded, with his pen still in his hand, Erza stared at him with big eyes. She had made it a habit to visit him weekly with apples and a new comic, but today, she was rather early. Natsu gasped a little too shocked and hugged the book to try to hide it._

_‘You’re reading, now, Natsu?’_

_Erza came closer and sat down on her chair, placing her basket beside her with the familiar cover of his favorite bundled comic magazine and the apples in it. Her voice became a little awkward. ‘You’ve… cooled… down a bit?’_ _She took an apple and started to peel it with her knife at superhuman speed, hands trembling with worry._ _Natsu chuckled harshly. ‘No! It’s just a good back scratcher,’ –he started to try to scratch his back with it, which instead of supporting his statement made it less credible- ‘see?’_

 _He defeatedly brought the book back to his lap. At that exact moment, he felt something tear. Natsu yelped. Erza suddenly looked very alarmed. '_ _Natsu!’_ _She stood up from her seat and equipped herself with a larger knife, giving him a real fright. '_ _Erza! What’s going on!’_

_She halted. ‘…Natsu..?! Where are you?’_

_Natsu gasped again._ Of course! The spell! _‘…It worked!’_

_‘Natsu, what are you talking about? Where are you?!’_

_Quickly, Natsu scribbled a word on the silky paper and tore it out of the book. Erza immediately gasped._ _‘Natsu! What was that?!’ Her armor hit his head. ‘How did you do that?’_

_But he couldn't utter a word: he was gone in his mind._

_..._

Natsu was sitting at the small writing table in his chamber. On it was his book. Half of the pages were torn out. He took his feather and leaned over to dip it. With the patience he'd practiced for this activity over the years, scratches as small as ants' legs started to cover the page.


	3. Chapter 2

_Of course, the first thing he tried was bring Lucy back. He didn’t care._

_He scribbled and tore, sighing with exhaustion from the long wait._

_…_

The next day, Natsu came back to the pub. As he expected, Happy was a full time employee there. He was cleaning the tables with a dirty tat, yawning and mumbling curse words to himself. When he looked up, with his nose buried covered with his forearm in an attempt to keep his boogers from hitting the table, which would result in him having to clean the table again, he smiled back. 

'Good morning, sir. I'm afraid we're not open, yet.'

'Yes.'

Natsu did not move at all from where he stood at the entrance. The young man tilted his head a little, confused. He straightened himself and supported himself with his hand on the table. Deciding he didn't care enough, he resumed his work.

Natsu's crossed arms and stance continued to stay unmoving for a few minutes. 'Say, Harold,' he started, then. 'Would you mind preparing me a lunch?

Happy eyed him briefly. He then wiped his hands against his thighs and walked to the bar.

'That'll be 1000 Jewels.'

Fifteen minutes later, Natsu was walking towards the forest with a clothed lunchbox under his arm and a talkative young man beside him.

'Well, you're lucky my boss sleeps until noon. I'll bring you to the right part of the forest in no time! Why did you ask me out of everyone to take you there, anyway?’

Natsu looked him dead in the eye for a few seconds before continuing on staring ahead of him. ‘I have my reasons.’

They walked on for a while.

‘Besides, you’ve seen her.’

Happy choked. A shaky laugh escaped him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir..!’

‘Bullshit. You saw her because you can sense creatures like that from a mile away.’

Happy choked once again. ‘H-Fgh...! What?! I mean,-doesn’t everyone, sometimes?’

Natsu chuckled. ‘Whatever you say.’

After a few minutes, Happy tried changing topics. ‘Sir, what made you come to this tiny old town?'

'Chance. Say, boy, do you live here by yourself?'

Happy smiled and kicked against the dirt. 'Nah. I have Mayi and Ai.'

Natsu's heart jumped. _Grandchildren..?_

'What is a man with responsibilities doing working in a place like that?'

Happy cried out with laughter and slammed against his back in a friendly manner. 'My cats, my cats!' He laughed whole-heartedly and then turned into a completely grim version of himself. 'The one I love keeps running away...'

'I see...'

Natsu smiled vacantly.

'I strongly advise you to move on to a better job.'

They were silent for a while.

'Think about it: how else will you buy your wedding ring?'

Natsu slapped his shoulder in a friendly manner and Happy chuckled awkwardly. 

Pleased with this promise of a worthier life for Happy, Natsu walked on. The boy probably didn't even know he came out of an egg. He still had a long way to go.

…

_They had found him when he and Lucy lived together, twenty years or so ago. Lucy herself had been pregnant at the time._

_In the first instance, Natsu, looking at it intensely while squatted in front of it, thought he was hallucinating. He heard her laugh from behind him. Her round belly came into his peripheral. This made him turn his head and whine about how she shouldn’t be doing anything unnecessary in this warm of the day._

_She shushed him and touched the stumped head of the large white with blue egg. ‘It’d be a shame to just let it bake here in the sun.’_

_Natsu hummed. ‘Agreed.’_

_They put the egg inside the house and had it sit on a large pillow. Sitting in front of it, they were now both staring intently at it._

_'It’s a dragon egg,' Lucy concluded. Natsu gasped. ‘The heat is getting to your head, babe…’_

_A kick._

_‘Natsu, think about it. Isn’t it odd? Why would someone leave behind their child in the grass of our garden, when there are thousands of others? The mother knew you were of the dragon’s kind, that’s why.’_

_That she had been right, they found out when Happy was born. It had been inside the guild, because Lucy was at home with the baby that couldn’t at all costs be woken up when it didn’t have to be and they had both predicted the monster to come out of the egg screeching and yelling._

_The rest of the story is history. A little cat came out of the egg and made everyone happy._

After raising him for a considerable amount of time, he was kidnapped. Natsu’d looked all around for him, and had in all honesty never stopped.

Not even all of his willpower had been able to keep him from walking up to his son and enclose him in an all transcending embrace when he laid his eyes on him in the bar. It had been the fact that he had not been there for him all those years.

Natsu hadn’t known Happy had garnered the ability to turn into a human. He hadn’t known most of his life, either. He was a lousy father.

_…_

_Nothing happened._

_Panic came so vigorously that Natsu’s body spasmed. He keeled over with the heat of it. He tried it once more, yet to no avail, either. She was really dead. He damned the world. Nothing could hurt like this. His only hope… had crashed grandly. Rather than crying, his breathing simply stopped._

'Well, I guess we're here now.'

Happy stopped at some old train tracks. 'The main trader's road. Like you asked.'

Natsu nodded. He grabbled in his sleeve and pressed some money into his hand. Before he could refuse, Natsu turned his head away, showing his back to him.

'Use that to buy yourself a train ticket. There's a guild in Fiore where you'll get a job if you mention my name to a lady called Erza.'

‘But-’

‘Go.’

Natsu walked into the forest. After a few seconds, he stepped back out and looked over his shoulder. Happy was running in the distance.

Relieved that his plan had worked, he walked on.

-

  
Finding the naiad seemed to be the hardest challenge, yet underwhelmingly so. It took him about two hours of additional exploring of the woods. Gray had, as he had expected, never met an actual monster in his life to compare this one to.

  
He stumbled upon a lone naked fairy combing through her hair lazily, legs hanging in the lilied pond. Her skin was shining from dampness. Natsu moved to hide behind a tree.

From his movement, she felt his presence and looked up. She stared at him enduringly like a cat would.

  
Natsu urgedly picked a couple of spell parchments from his sleeve. As he did, she slithered into the pond. He looked around, but she, as he expected, had hidden herself well. With the use of hiding having become clearly unnecessary now, he came out. The low forest greenery felt like a cushion underneath him as he approached the spring.

  
Upon him stepping into it, the water came to his ankles. His eyebrows shot up. She was nowhere to be found in it, either. He squatted and created a little fire in his hands. 'I will burn this down if you don't come out of there.'

Natsu waited. His surroundings became quiet. Even the leaves stopped moving. He held it a couple seconds more. Nothing. He sighed and got up again, rubbing the fire off on his thigh.

He chuckled. 'I'll wait.'

_…_

_Natsu found out a few things about the book. The spells worked for about half an hour, more or less. They did exactly what he imagined they would bring about when he wrote down a word. Death and life couldn’t be created with them. He’d tried enough times to know. Getting whereabouts about the dead, receiving their attention, getting a word to or from… All not possible. Creating money was, though. Alchemy was a thing it could do. It was completely useless to him, though._

_It felt like a curse, the hope this empty book brought to him. If he just wrote down the right word, wished the right thing… maybe he could crack the code and still get her back._

_Eventually, he’d willed to just see her once since this thing was able to do a lot. It worked, and, to his own surprise, didn't cause him a fatal heart attack._

_Face Memory._

_He’d done it. He’d cracked it._

_...For thirty minutes._


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait...

Eventually, she appeared before him, and, he figured, more out of curiosity than anything.

This desire in him roared awake, paling all of remembrance, and it attacked him painfully. A dead urge to desire once more.

The girl's eyes moved. 'Meal.'

'No.'

Natsu laughed somewhat, seeing her small face shift slightly.

And like always, he would give in to it.

He moved into stance and ripped a few pieces of paper: _Illusion. Face memory._

'Lucy,' he said in a warm tone, 'why are you here?'

This made her laugh. After a moment of silent contemplation, her lips became curled, amused. 'Alright.' She moved to place a hand on his chest. 'I'm hiding because I’m a killer.'

Natsu looked at her while she landed with her face and other hand on his chest. He brushed his fingers against her skin, more out of homesickness than anything.

'Explain.'

  
Her hands started moved to his face his hair. She became passionate with him while she did.

'I was married off to him. He abused me. I hid at my friend’s house a lot. One day, he came home and I tripped with a knife in my hand. It would've stayed an accident if I wasn't looking so goddamn relieved when the police came. There used to be a prison here, you know.'

'I see... Did you sell your soul to this forest?'

She lifted her head with a question on her mind. He leaned down and kissed her neck, which made her chuckle. 'No. I don’t have one anymore. I’m guilty for all the crimes you’re going to kill me for.’

'Are you a mage?'

Natsu's eyes became hazy as he smelled her skin.

'I'm good at mindtricks, but I'm not a magician.' 

'Ah… So that's why...the pond...' Natsu mumbled, his lips dragging along her skin feverishly, pressing against it every now and again. His arms wrapped around her neck.

After a last few kisses and some, he snapped his wrist to set alight the forest around them, holding her tightly. The flames licked against them. It became difficult for Natsu to keep from crying. ‘You know, I met our son today… He grew up well.’

Slowly, the spell started to fade. He let her go. Like always, in the end.

From a distance, he saw her cry while she seared and struggled. But no, even now, after the unnumbered time, he couldn’t forgive himself doing nothing but just see her die.

Only her body had charred due to the spells. He took her head from the ashes and rubbed the remains from her hair and skin. His head was about to be blown apart from headache. With a slow pace, he walked back to the village to make Gray's wife happy.

_Face memory, a custom by Natsu Dragneel._  
_Spell to transform opponent into the face caster desires._

  
_Illusion, idem._  
_Spell to induce caster into a dream wherein the imagination filters the situation with what the caster desires._

He knew that, even when putting all this effort into keeping her alive, he still felt more than guilty for Lucy’s death. Furthermore, the fact that he had garnered all this worldwide fame from allegedly having beaten the monster that she in fact had, with her life, made him live in continuous despair.

…

_Lucy slammed a book into his chest, kneeling down. Natsu, who was lying helplessly on the ground with two broken legs, screamed out and captured her frame in his arms in utter despair. Behind them, the monster was screeching deliriously from her last attack that had damaged its eyes._

_'This paper is spell parchment. It's the last to exist.'_

_Before she pried himself from his grasp to face the monster one final time, she said: 'Don't waste it on trying to bring me back.'_

_Natsu gasped with breaking amounts of pain. 'Lucy, no! Please!'_ _He moved, crying out with a voice thick with emotion. 'Give me your pen! Let me heal! Help you!'_

_The monster stilled and steadied again. It began to huff vigorously._

_'It's too late.'_

_‘No! Lucy, please!’_

_She looked behind him and smiled at him one last time. Getting into stance, she screamed out and performed her final spell._

_'Lucy! Lucy!... LUCY!'_

-

Arriving in the pub, Gray was grinning at him. He came from his seat.

'I see you've done it.'

He took Natsu in a short embrace. 'Thank you, friend. My wife will be so happy.'

'All welcome.'

Natsu looked around vacantly while Gray inspected the prize gleefully.

From the door came a girl. She was smiling lazily as she walked towards him. 'You've finished?' she asked after greeting them. He nodded slightly.

'Well,' -he turned towards Gray, smiling as a way of announcing his parting-, 'this is goodbye. Stay well, Gray.'

  
'And you.'

Gray hesitated. 'As gratitude, let me invite you to my house for dinner.’

‘Much obliged. I have to go, though. Send my regards to your wife and the bean.’

Gray laughed. ‘Alright.’

Natsu laughed weakly and stepped into his sandals. As he walked out of the pub, he eyed his lady. She and he had been on and off for a while and she’d taken the effort to drive him around for this job.

In his hand, hidden under his sleeve, he tore the paper slowly with his thumb and index finger.

…

_He’d tried it on himself in the mirror. And yes, there was Lucy, staring back at him. Frightened and shocked out of his mind, Natsu, despite his physique, was about to faint. Three years, it’d taken him… He decided in that moment that he would keep tearing spells as to not witness her fade away in his mind, because he would die._

_And so, he’d fixed himself into the habit of taking little untorn spells with him and using them stealthily on strangers, sporadic lovers and eventually even his enemies. He forbid himself to use it on friends and family –but this was his only rule._

_It became a saying in his mind, that sometimes, one moment in the world is enough._

To his own horror, his secret practice did the completely opposite of what he wanted. After writing and tearing these same spells over and over hundreds of times and seeing a thousand different Lucy’s, the real she faded away from his mind rapidly. The more he tried to bring her closer, the more she slipped away. Nothing lasted forever like his desire for her return.

At the breaking point of trying to undo his own created misery, he forgot the real she. He despaired over it enough to feel his remorse exceed his love for her. And so, when he woke up one day and saw himself tear another one, he knew well that this had gone above himself completely. It could no longer be kept from starting to lead its own life with him as the caster. He, as much as she, became no more than a concept in this life.

Every person he saw had to be her; every person he had he had to love from the bottom of his heart so he could lose her again –all to do it again in favor of the burning hunger that was busy hollowing him out. Because he wanted to love her again, without despair, like he did in those fleeting moments.

And he would keep trying until he found her again … Forever, he’d be trying.

Illusion, he’d come up many years later and was a recent spell of his.

It’d completed his little world.

_-**-_

Don't leave me

I will weep no more

I will speak no more

I will hide myself there

To watch you

Dance and smile

And listen to you

Sing and then laugh

Let me become

The shadow of your shadow

The shadow of your hand

The shadow of your dog

Don't leave me

Don't leave me

Don't leave me

Don't leave me

_-**-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics: Ne me quitte pas - Jacques Brel
> 
> I enjoyed writing this a lot!  
> Thank you for reading and see you later...


End file.
